Reboot your Thinking! The Kingdom of God has Come: Matthew 3:1-12 - Matthew: Kingdom of God Revolution

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Men and women, God does his greatest work in your struggles and in your wilderness.

I want to challenge you to rethink how things are going in your life if you're struggling to stop.

And to begin to say to yourself, God does his greatest work when I'm in the wilderness.

I want you to remember that.

Now to jot that down.

God does his greatest work in the wilderness.

At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

For more information on the road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from pastor teacher Steve Holt.

We've been talking about the kingdom of God.

If you have a Bible, turn to the book of Matthew.

We are in a series on the book of Matthew, or going chapter by chapter and verse by verse through Matthew, with the theme of a revolution of the kingdom.

The revolution or a revolution of the kingdom of God.

The thesis that I have that you're going to hear in the months ahead, that we've already had two messages about.

If you're new, you're kind of coming in on the third message, is that the central message of Jesus was the kingdom of God.

And specifically, and most importantly, of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Matthew 29 times, captures the idea of the kingdom of heaven, of the kingdom of God more than all the gospel writers.

So God's leading me to take us through Matthew to talk about a kingdom of God revolution.

Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God over a hundred times.

It was his central message.

Here's what's interesting of the four major creeds of the church that have become creeds that many denominations quote or say from time to time, some in every service, some occasionally at different times, never mention the kingdom of God.

Isn't it amazing that the central message, the central point of Jesus' ministry was always on the kingdom of God, and yet none of our creeds cover the kingdom of God?

I study systematic theology.

I took three different courses on systematic theology when I was working on my master's degree at Fuller, and never, except in brief little moments, was there anything given to the kingdom of God?

And so the kingdom of God is the great neglect.

It's the great neglect of the church.

And so I want to change that.

I want to change our mentality.

I want us to think about the kingdom.

And over the next year, I consider it the beautiful, wonderful, awesome weight of my responsibility as a pastor, teacher, and equipper here at the row to so inculcate your mind and your heart with the revolution of the kingdom of God that you'll never be the same again.

Because this is the message of Jesus.

It is the unshakable kingdom, the writer of Hebrews says, and men and women, it's God's total answer for man's total need.

Write that down.

God's total answer for man's total need is the kingdom of God.

And the kingdom of God is embodied in the King, Jesus Christ.

And here's what's interesting I was looking at Matthew 3, preparing, even while I was in Georgia at the Wholeheart Advance, and realizing that Ethan was going to talk about the renewing of the mind last week, and then coming to what we're going to read now because this is totally about renewing the mind.

So you're going to get it again.

So would you stand with me?

Would you just stand with me?

And I want to read God's word.

And we have different translations, so I'm just going to read it myself, and you guys read along with whatever translation you have.

I'm reading from the New King James Version, Matthew 3.

In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

For this is he who spoke of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight.

Now John himself is clothed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan went out to him, and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, Brute of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come.

Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance.

And do not think to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father, for I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

And even now, the axe is laid at the root of the trees, therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and then thrown into the fire.

And I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance.

But he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I'm not even worthy to carry, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

And his winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, and he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

So, Father, we bless you.

We bless your word.

God, I pray that you would take your word here this morning.

Father God, and burn it into our hearts.

God, burn it into our minds.

God, renew our minds with your spirit.

God, help us to grasp and understand through your spirit what you're saying to us today, 2019, about the kingdom of God.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

Can be seated.

So John comes out and he begins to preach a gospel of repentance in preparation for the coming of Christ.

And he says this.

Look at verses 1 and 2 again.

He says, In those days John came preaching, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Now, repent, as we've come to understand it, most of the time, when it's used today in our churches, it is associated with becoming a believer.

Repent from your sin, turn to Christ, and get saved.

Great message.

Fantastic message, biblical message.

I'm gonna do a little bit different today, and really I'm gonna dig in to actually the literalism of the word, which is metanoia.

Metanoia is a Greek word for repent.

It means a change of mind.

And I think it's interesting if you look at verse 2 of chapter 3, where John says, repent for the kingdom of heaven is hand.

Now look at chapter 4, verse 17.

Jesus says essentially the exact same thing.

He says, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

You think God's trying to get a message to us?

You think he's trying to communicate something to us?

He's saying, change your thinking, because there's now the kingdom.

The kingdom of God is here.

The kingdom of God has arrived.

The kingdom of God is in your midst.

Right here.

It's interesting, and we don't know for sure, but I've often wondered if John, when he begins to preach that, saw Jesus.

In other words, he's not randomly saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand, maybe every time he spoke, but rather he, because we know the context, Jesus is about to be baptized.

He's out there, he's preaching probably in the Jordan River, up around Galilee in that area.

How many of you have ever been baptized in the Jordan River?

Okay, I've been baptized in the Jordan River.

When I was a senior in college, my graduation present was my family took me to Israel, and then my dad baptized me in the Jordan River.

So we believe this particular area, northern part of Jordan, northern part of Israel, might have been where he was at, and then sometimes he's down in the wilderness in some other areas, but probably because the water's deeper there, he was up there.

But I've wondered if there's this crowd, they're all out there.

He looks out and he sees Jesus.

He sees him in the crowd and he says, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

In other words, the kingdom is here.

The embodiment of the kingdom, the unchanging person, Jesus, who's the same yesterday and forever, is here bringing the unshakable kingdom.

And so, men and women, God is challenging us today to a new mindset.

Guess what?

The first computer, the UNIVAC 1.

Anybody know what the UNIVAC 1 was?

Okay, all the nerds in the church know the UNIVAC 1.

Okay, this was the first mainframe computer.

The first mainframe computer, UNIVAC 1, was not the first mainframe computer.

I just want to let you guys know that.

I know more than you.

It's true, it's not.

And Microsoft and Apple did not create the first uh personal computers.

Actually, they didn't anyway, but the guy who did, who went bankrupt right after that, um, they didn't that those were not the first computers.

The first computers were created in Eden.

God created the first personal computer, and it's between your ears.

This is the mainframe.

This is the most important computer in the world.

Everybody look at me.

Everybody say together.

Most important computer in the world is between my ears.

This computer right up here can change or destroy your life.

And that's why it's the battleground of demons.

It is the battleground of demons.

And I'm telling you, church, if we can get a handle and if we can parent our kids and getting a handle, if we can uh grow with our spouse if we're married and get a handle, if we're if we're single, we get a handle on this personal computer, we can transform our lives.

Or we can ruin our lives.

Because we have these neurotransmitters that send forth chemicals that connect the synapses of our brain.

And what stimulates those neurotransmitters is everything.

I want to challenge you in the days ahead that we would learn to renew our minds with new thinking that stimulates our neurotransmitters with the kingdom of God.

With the kingdom of God flowing through us with a new chemical flow.

And I like serotonin better than dopamine.

I like God moving and getting my big T going, you know, testosterone going, rather than uh oxytocin.

And that happens through the way we think, the way we view our life, the way we talk to ourselves.

So I want to give you four new ways of thinking.

Four new ways of thinking about the kingdom of God that begin to renew our minds.

And it's fun, Ethan, that you kind of started this discussion with last week.

Because this hard drive, some of you, your hard drive needs help.

We've had so much of a stimulation within our many computers, our personal computers, that have so messed up our hard drives that we need to shut it down and we need to restart.

So I believe there's four ways that we're gonna learn about in the weeks and months ahead from Matthew.

Number one is the new birth.

And unfortunately, in most churches, this is where it stops.

All we talk about is the new birth.

We're spending so much time and so much effort trying to get people into heaven that we don't equip them about how to live on earth.

And so, first of all, the new birth.

You've been born into the kingdom.

You don't join the kingdom, you don't become a member of the kingdom, you're born into the kingdom.

The only way you can get into the kingdom of God is you've got to be birthed into it.

You're birthed into the kingdom.

So if you're not born again, if you've never given your heart to Christ, if you've never fully given the main frame of your computer to Him, then you're under darkness.

The scriptures say that you are captive to the God of this age.

So you can't even think straight.

You want to think straight.

Maybe that's why you're here, because you want to think straight, but you can't think straight, because your your mind is chained to the old operating system.

And God wants to change that operating system.

He wants to give you a new operating system, and that's the kingdom of God.

So, number one, you've got to start thinking, I'm born again.

I am a new person.

I have a new computer, I have a new heart.

The old heart is gone, and God has given me a new heart.

So, number one, new birth.

Secondly, dual citizenship.

Jot that down.

You have a dual citizenship.

You live on this earth, but you're not of this earth.

Listen, you're in this earth, you were born on this earth, but you're not of this earth.

You're not of the kingdom of this earth.

You now are of the kingdom of God.

You have a dual citizenship.

So you have a responsibility on this earth.

You have a responsibility on this earth.

Jesus said, and we're going to cover that in the next few weeks, to pray, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So the more you know about heaven, then the more you can bring it to earth.

Hear what I'm saying?

So you've got to bring, our job is to bring heaven to the earth with a dual citizenship.

And so many of us are so earthly minded, we're no heavenly good.

Others of you, listen, this is important, are so heavenly minded you're no earthly good.

It's true.

I know people, they they just they fast and pray about everything.

I mean, I feel like they fast and pray about what clothes to wear each day.

And I say, man, come on, come on.

I love your spirit, I love your heart, it's fantastic, but you know, get a job.

Just get a job, man.

I meet young people all the time that have come out of different movements and stuff, and their greatest job is they actually got a raise at Starbucks.

You are made for so much more than that.

You really are.

And then there's others that they never open the word.

The only time they open the word is when they come to church on Sunday, hardly ever pray.

The closest thing to praise and worship might be to put it on a Christian radio station on the way, and then they wonder why they have no power.

And they wonder why they have so many problems in their marriage.

They can't figure out why they are always struggling with finances.

They've never thed a day in their life.

You hear what I'm saying?

So God has given us a dual citizenship, church, both.

God wants us to be spirit-filled from heaven, but he wants us to translate that into a renewed mind on the earth to make an impact.

We're supposed to make an impact for the kingdom of God.

So, first new birth, second, dual citizenship.

Number three, new culture.

God's given us a new culture.

I think we know a little bit about the culture of America.

You might know that's not the kingdom of God.

But God, as we get into his word, begins to give us a new culture.

In other words, a definition of the kingdom would be that it's kingdom.

So it's the king's domain.

Kingdom, king's domain.

And the king's domain is that the king controls and owns a territory.

Every king has territory or he doesn't have a kingdom.

If he doesn't have a kingdom, he's not a king.

So the king of the territory on this earth, he has a territory in you, and what a king does is he stamps his culture, his identity, his passion upon his citizenship.

So we bring a new culture.

We don't take our cues from the American culture, we take our cues from kingdom culture.

Now, now we're in this culture.

And so you gotta wear clothes and get around.

So I'm not saying that, you know, like some churches are locked in in the Middle Ages.

Remember, I was talking to an Orthodox priest one time, and and I said, you know what I love about Orthodoxy?

And I gave him all the five or six things that I love about Orthodoxy.

You know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about the Orthodox Church?

Very, very liturgical, you know, bells and smells and all that.

And um, and so I I actually was I was fascinated in graduate school with the Orthodox Church because of their claims to being the continuous secession from the apostles and everything.

So I'm talking to a real guy.

I'm talking to like a father, uh a priest and everything.

And he had the robes and everything, and he had a beard.

I mean, he was he looked like the real deal.

And uh and I said, now what's your name?

He says, Well, which name?

And I said, I said, what?

He said, well, before Orthodoxy it was this, you know, sort of a normal line of John Smith, you know.

But now he's Father Nicholas.

And I said, What's that?

Well, it's it's Greek.

It's a Greek, I'm Greek Orthodox, I had a Greek, Greek name.

And I said, Well, here's my question for you.

Because we were having a debate about, you know, I'm I'm much more like low church, non-liturgical, and all that kind of stuff, and rock bands, and I I even said, Hey man, I'm kind of a rock and roll church, you know, and every.

And I said, I know you don't dig that stuff and everything.

And he, you know, nah, anyway.

We he got saved in a rock and roll church.

That's kind of fun.

But I said, what's so anointed about the 10th century?

I mean, what's so anointed?

And we had a fascinating conversation, he actually struggled with it too, so it was really fun.

I'll tell him all the struggles we have, because sometimes we're not liturgical enough.

And uh anyway, it was a fascinating conversation.

Point being, you're in this culture.

Okay, don't be weird.

I mean, just be in the culture.

But you don't have to take your moral, ethical, spiritual cues from the culture.

Hear what I'm saying?

So I'm not talking about just the exterior, I'm talking about the interior heart stuff.

So a new culture.

Number four, kingdom assignment.

Write that down.

Kingdom assignment.

We'll talk about that in a few weeks.

But every one of you in this room have a kingdom assignment from God.

You know, um, like I was talking about, you know, Ethan and Deborah at the well, you know, we have this treasure.

Each one of us has been given a treasure, 2 Corinthians 4, 7.

We got a treasure within that I was talking to the well on Friday night about, and that's your there's something about the unique qualities of each one of you.

Some of you are really good at math, some of you are really terrible at math.

Some of you are mechanics, some of you are lawyers, some of you are gifted in certain and different ways, but that's because God has an assignment for you.

He's got a kingdom assignment.

He's put you on this earth to do something nobody else can do.

Nobody else has your assignment but you.

So we've got to begin to renew our minds for the release of those neurotransmitters so that we begin to think joyfully, positively.

And what does it say?

The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy.

So, righteousness, peace, and joy is directly related to this personal computer up here.

So everybody stand.

Everybody stand up.

And I want you to say a few phrases after.

I want you to put your hands on your hips, just like this.

Feet apart, shoulder, shoulder, shoulder length with your feet apart, like this.

That's your confidence pose, because you have unshakable confidence, don't you?

You have unshakable confidence in Christ.

Okay, here's the first thing I want you to say.

Jesus is my sovereign and my king, I have been reborn.

Look at that.

Say that.

Jesus is my sovereign and my king, I have been reborn.

All right, look at the second one.

I'll read it.

I'm no longer a religious person, but a citizen of the kingdom.

Let's say it together.

I'm no longer a religious person, but a citizen of the kingdom.

All right, let's say this one together.

I'm no longer a captive citizen of darkness, but a free citizen of the light.

Amen.

I have dual citizenship.

I am a heavenly man or woman living on the earth.

And lastly, I am on the earth as a co regent and co ruler with Christ.

All right, you can be seated.

Amen.

That's who you are.

Renew your mind with it.

Verse 3.

Verse 3.

This is really important.

It's really important.

Pregnant verse.

For this is he who is spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.

Make his path straight.

Now John himself was clothed in camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

This guy's a weirdo.

Seriously, man, he's a weirdo.

Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him and Jordan, confessing their sins.

Now, there's no doubt about John's one of the weirdest guys in the Bible.

The way he's dressed, and the way he acts, listen, listen, it's important.

He's the last Old Testament prophet.

He's the last of the Old Testament prophets he just happens to be written about in the New Testament.

But he's a bridge character, he's a bridge leader preparing the hearts of the people for Jesus.

Now, I want you to look at the fact that he's in the wilderness and he's crying in the wilderness.

And if you have a Bible like Ab and you can circle it, circle it, if you can underline it, if you can highlight whatever you're looking at, crying one crying in the wilderness.

That's what we're gonna talk about briefly here.

God always does his greatest work in your wilderness.

He does.

And I want to challenge you and your personal computer to rethink wilderness, to rethink suffering, to rethink shame.

This is what we talked about at the Whole Heart Advance.

We got a Whole Heart Advance, Colorado, number three, coming up in September.

I want to challenge you men to be at that.

But one of the things we talk about is wilderness, and I'll just briefly cover it here.

Abraham found his calling in the wilderness.

Moses had his burning bush experience in the wilderness.

David spent 17 years in the wilderness preparing to be king.

John comes crying out in the wilderness.

Jesus is going to come next week, we're going to read about him, coming in the wilderness.

Men and women, God does his greatest work in your struggles and in your wilderness.

I want to challenge you to rethink how things are going in your life if you're struggling with stuff.

And to begin to say to yourself, God does his greatest work when I'm in my wilderness.

I want you to remember that.

You ought to jot that down.

God does his greatest work in the wilderness.

John, of all people in Scripture, could have been in the city.

He could have been right outside King Herod's palace.

Some would say he should have been right in front of the temple, preaching to the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all the people that are gathered.

No, he's in the wilderness.

Tradition tells us that he left and went into the wilderness at 14 years of age.

Archaeology's just discovered in the last 10 years what they call the John the Baptist Cave just outside Jerusalem.

They believe that's where he lived for the last part of his life until he was captured and killed by Herod.

Because God does his deepest work in our heart through breaking us, through humbling us.

And so many of us, are we not, afraid of our shame.

We spend our whole life covering up our shame.

Covering up what that sexual abuse, covering up those urges of our life that we can't admit to anybody.

Covering up that divorce, covering up that abortion.

Maybe covering up that murder.

And God's saying to you that when you can become vulnerable with some trusted men and women and with God, God will start to set you free.

God will begin a new work, and he'll break the power of shame, and he'll break the power of that wilderness experience, and he'll begin to express within you a new you, a kingdom of God, you.

And you'll begin to discover the joy and the peace and the power that's possible in your life because Satan comes always to steal, kill, and destroy.

Jesus always comes that you might have life and might have it abundantly.

Jesus doesn't want you to just have life.

He wants you to have abundant life, overflowing life, ever-increasing life.

Too many believers in the church today stop with eternal life.

Well, I got eternal life.

I got saved when I was 12.

I got baptized.

I've got life insurance.

And God said, No, no.

I want you to have abundant life.

I want you to have an abundant life marriage.

I want you to have abundant life finances.

I want you to have abundant life singleness.

I want you to have abundant life as a mom.

I want you to have an abundant life as a mechanic.

I want you to have an abundant life as an accountant.

It's possible.

But you got to renew your mind.

You got to have a new mindset.

You got to say, I'm going after the abundant life.

There's a treasure within me.

I'm going to develop that treasure within me because God has a unique calling on my life.

And nobody's going to stop me from reaching all that God has for me because I'm trusting in the constitution of the kingdom.

And the constitution of the kingdom is this book.

You realize this book is all about how good God is and how much he loves you.

And if you'll follow it, how successful you can be in every area of your life.

Isn't that exciting?

Man.

Good stuff.

Well, then the biggest substitute and the biggest struggle, and we've already captured this in the first two chapters, because Matthew is really trying to communicate, look, this is what it's all about.

But here's what you think it's all about.

Look at verse 7.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, Brood of vipers.

Now that's not a really good way to win friends and influence people.

Brood of vipers, who warns you to flee from the wrath to come?

Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance.

Do not think to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father, for I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

And even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.

Therefore, every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

The number one substitute for a real, passionate relationship with Jesus Christ.

The number one substitute for the kingdom of God in our hearts is religion.

It's not immorality, it's religion.

Because we substitute the relationship for ritual.

We substitute the control of the Holy Spirit with self-control.

Because we don't want anything to upset what we want to do with our lives.

And so the enemy has come and birthed within us, within that computer of our mind, this idea that if I give my life fully to Christ, I'm going to be the most unhappy person on the face of the earth.

I remember when I first got saved, the first thought that came to me was, oh no.

I'm going to have to be a missionary in Africa.

Now I became a missionary in Japan, but um.

But it's like, ah, I want my life.

But I came across John 10, 10.

It radicalized my life.

The kingdom's always radical, church.

And that is that the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, and I came that you might have life and might have it abundantly.

And so I just surrendered to Christ, and I'm just gonna tell you right now, and it's never lost me all these years.

The Christian life is not what it's about.

It's the kingdom of God with the king on the throne of your heart, and that's a great adventure.

So we think Christianity, let's quit thinking Christianity and think Jesus.

Let's think kingdom.

So I was with one of our missionaries who's in Czech Republic this week, and we were talking about different things, and he said, Man, you know the hardest, I said, what's the hardest thing about what you're doing in Czech Republic with this prayer room that they're developing?

He said, it's getting all these different denominations together.

You know, the Methodists and the Pentecostals and the conservative Baptists and letting them know they can, you know, uh experience praise and worship and prayer at this prayer house that we're developing.

I said, why don't you just change the entire conversation?

He said, What do you mean?

I said, why don't you just talk about the kingdom of God?

Why don't you say we want to have a kingdom of God revolution in Czech Republic?

Not a Christian revolution, a kingdom of God revolution.

Because that's what Jesus said, that's what Jesus did, that's what Jesus communicated to us, and it cuts through all the denominational jargon.

And he got pumped about it.

So I'm excited to see what happens with that.

Men and women, it's the answer to our needs, it's the kingdom.

God coming.

And so he says here that there's one coming who's gonna baptize us with fire and the Holy Spirit.

Now, more on this next week.

But look at verse 11.

He says, I indeed baptize you with water under repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry.

He, Jesus, he's speaking of, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire, and his winnowing fan, a better translation would be his winnowing fork, it was kind of like a pitch fork, is in his hand.

He will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, and but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

So here's what he's saying.

He's saying there's one coming that's gonna baptize you with the Holy Spirit, but it's gonna be followed with, and alongside there's gonna be fire with it.

And the best description I can give you to an agrarian culture at that time was it's like when you guys go into the barn of the threshing floor, and the wheat's been brought in and it's laying there, and you come in with this pitchfork, this winnowing fork, and you throw it up into the air, and the chaff, the light chaff, blows off, and what they do is they collect that chaff and they burn it.

He's burning off the chaff as a farmer to get the wheat as pure as possible.

You didn't want to be eating your, you know, your Wheaties.

That's pretty funny, I thought.

Your Wheaties.

With chaff in it.

That would be kind of crummy.

You know, you're getting your got your Wheaties and you're getting ready to eat it, and you got chaff in it.

So they clean the chaff out.

And so Jesus comes with his Holy Spirit, more on this next week, to burn up the chaff in our lives.

That's what he does.

It's really fun.

It hurts, it's painful, but I'm old enough now to look past the pain to see the fruit.

You see, that's when we that's how we can renew our minds about the wilderness.

Man, this is really hard right now.

God must be doing something in me.

It's gonna change my life forever.

I'm gonna press into him in a deeper way through my words.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

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